Quick And Easy Way To Teach Bike Riding

That Great American Pastime known as ``teaching your kid to ride a bike`` ranks right up there with telling your kid about sex -- only worse. You don`t tell your kid about sex with all the neighbors standing around thinking, if not saying, ``He`s doing it all wrong.``

It never fails. No matter how carefully you watch and wait until there is no one on the street, as soon as you step out the door with your child and his new bike, your neighbors suddenly appear. All your neighbors suddenly appear. Neighbors you have never seen before. Neighbors with relatives. Neighbors with people they have met in malls, bars, bus stops. Neighbors with bag ladies, Bedouin nomads, the Altar and Rosary Society from Saint Hyacinth`s. Hundreds, thousands of neighborly people line the street.

Or so it seems.

And you puff and wheeze and run yourself silly up and down that narrow, endless ribbon of sidewalk while these neighbors offer can`t-fail suggestions: ``It`s all in his butt. Tell him he`s gotta feel it in his butt.``

You sweat, redden and smile, then run the gantlet again and tell yourself this is quality time you are spending with your child.

That is the way it was for me, anyway. But after several weekends of turfed lawns, trashed tulip beds, a battered bike, a bruised kid and a near-terminal loss of human dignity, I figured it was time to engage in another Great American Pastime known as ``inventing a better way.`` Here it is: How to teach bike riding in one hour without running yourself silly. It is easy. And it is kid-tested.

--How long would it have taken us to learn to walk as babies if we had had to learn by walking on the side of a 2-by-4? We would still be crawling on our hands and knees, ruining expensive clothes and having a tough time on the dance floor. Learning to ride a bike on a sidewalk is a little like learning to walk on a 2-by-4.

Your kid can`t even sit on a bike yet and you`re asking him to master the complex art of steering down a narrow strip of cement between the terrifying, forbidden zones of neighbors` lawns. Put the bike in the car. Take it and your kid to a school playground or empty church parking lot -- a place where he won`t have to worry about steering until he learns how to stay up.

--Most of us ``just learn`` how to ride a bike in a single, blazing, inspired moment after a suitable period of bashing our knees on the ground -- sometimes for as long as two summers. One moment we can`t ride to save our lives. The next moment we can. We know how. But we don`t know the ``how.``

The fact is, there is a real method to riding a bike and the secret is all in the front wheel. Simply put, when you start to fall right, turn the front wheel right and when you start to fall left, turn the front wheel left.

This is the technique we master in our ``inspired moment.`` We think we learned the balance, the feel, of bike riding. What we really learned was a way to stop the tilt of a falling bike by turning the wheel (think of it as sticking your leg out) while at the same time redirecting the momentum of the bike, allowing it to right itself. Of course, in actual practice we constantly make these small, front-wheel adjustments -- adjustments so small we don`t even notice them.

--You are in an empty church parking lot. Your kid is on the bike, feet on the pedals, hands on the handlebars. You are holding him up by the back of the bike seat. Next move is don`t move -- not one puffing, wheezing, sweating inch. Here is where you teach the ``how.``

Tilt the bike to the right and to the left. Tell your child, ``When you start feeling yourself fall this way (right), turn your front wheel this way (right). When you start feeling yourself fall this way (left), turn your front wheel this way (left).`` Stand there, without moving, for five or 10 minutes practicing with your child. Tilt the bike unexpectedly one way and then the other until your child gets the hang of turning the front wheel.

--Walk, don`t run, with your child. Move slowly. Hold lightly onto the back of his bike seat. The concept of turning the front wheel into a fall is easy to understand. But there are two things your child probably will do that you should practice: He will wait until he is tilting too far into the fall before correcting the front wheel, or he will overcorrect and go right into a fall/ correct situation in the opposite direction.

Explain to your child that he wants to correct early. Tilt him very slightly and show him how far to correct with the front wheel. Tilt him a little more and show him how much he will have to turn the wheel to correct. Show him that if he waits too long he will either crash or start losing control in the other direction.

--You will have to run a little now. But you won`t have to do it for long and, even better, you won`t have to do it in front of the neighbors.